XI. Maeshow and the Stones of Stennis.
Maeshow, the Orkahaug of the Saga, is connected in such an interesting way with the Norse history of the Isles that it is necessary to notice briefly its most peculiar features.
It stands about a mile to the north-east of the great stone ring of Stennis. Its external appearance is that of a truncated conical mound of earth, about 300 feet in circumference at the base and 36 feet high, surrounded by a trench 40 feet wide. Nothing was known of its internal structure till the year 1861, when it was opened by Mr. Farrer, M.P.,[[196]] but the common tradition of the country represented it as the abode of a goblin, who was named “the Hogboy,”[[197]] though no one knew why. When excavated, the mound was found to cover a great cairn of stones, in the centre of which was a chamber about 15 feet square, the walls of which still remained entire to a height of 13 feet. A long low passage led from the west side of the chamber to the exterior of the mound, a distance of about 54 feet, and on the other three sides of the chamber there were small cells or loculi entered by openings in the walls about 2½ feet square at a height of about 3 feet above the floor.
Plan and Section of Maeshow.
Structurally, Maeshow belongs to a class of chambered sepulchral cairns of common occurrence in the north of Scotland, but to a special variety of that class which is peculiar to the Orkneys.[[198]] These chambered tombs occur in groups in certain places, thus suggesting the probability that, as in the great royal cemeteries of early times in Ireland, they may have been for centuries the gathering places of the tribes and the burying-places of their kings.
View of Chamber in Maeshow.
But the most interesting fact connected with Maeshow was the discovery that a large number of Runic inscriptions had been scratched on the stones of the interior walls of the chamber. It was evident, from the height at which the inscriptions occurred, as well as from indications of the weathering of the stones previous to their being inscribed, that when the runes were cut the chamber was roofless and partially filled up with rubbish. The form of the letters of which the inscriptions are composed is that of the later class of Norse Runes, “which,” says Professor Munch, “are never older than A.D. 1100 at least.” The majority of the inscriptions are such as men seeking the shelter or concealment of the “broken how” might scribble from mere idleness. One gives the Runic alphabet. A number of others are simple memoranda consisting of the name of a man and the statement that he “hewed this” or “carved these runes.” But one of the longer inscriptions supplies the important information that “the Jorsala-farers broke open the Orkahaug in the lifetime of the blessed earl.” This seems to imply that the inscription was carved after the death of “the blessed earl” Rögnvald, or subsequent to 1158. The Jorsala-farers who accompanied him from Norway in 1152 remained a considerable time in Orkney before the expedition was ready, and as we learn from the Saga their conduct during that time was such as would naturally result from the enforced idleness of a numerous body of rough and uncontrolled adventurers. The “breaking of a how” in the hope of finding treasure was a common exploit among the Northmen. It seems to have been done sometimes also as a proof of courage, for the bravest were not altogether void of superstitious fears. From another part of the inscription we gather that the Jorsala-farers who broke the Orkahaug were disappointed in the hope of finding treasure, as it had been previously carried away. In all probability they were not the first who had been tempted by the magnitude of the monument to try the venture. On one of the buttresses, long slabs inserted in the corners of the chamber, is carved a cross, and on another a dragon, similar in style to that in the tomb of King Gorm the Old at Jellinge in Denmark, and bearing also some resemblance to one sculptured on the Runic stone dug up in St. Paul’s Churchyard, London, and to another at Hunestad in Scania. The tomb of King Gorm is dated about the middle of the 10th century. Rafn assigns the stone dug up in London to about the middle of the 11th century; while the Hunestad example is assigned to about 1150, which is close on the date of Earl Rögnvald’s expedition to the Holy Land, which brought the Jorsala-farers to Orkney.
RUBBING FROM MAESHOW TUMULUS.
Among the names thus carved on the stones of Maeshow are those of Ingibiorg, Ingigerd, Thorer, Helgi, Ingi, and Arnfinn. All these are names of persons who are mentioned in the Saga as living in Earl Rögnvald’s time, and several of whom were closely connected with him. Ingigerd, his daughter, was married to Eric Slagbrellir, and they had a daughter named Ingibiorg. Helgi was a particular friend of Earl Rögnvald’s. Arnfinn was taken prisoner by Earl Harald the morning after he and his men had spent the Yule-feast day at Orkahaug on his way to surprise Earl Erlend.[[199]] There is nothing, however, to identify any of these names with certainty as the names of the persons mentioned in the Saga. But the fact that the name Orkahaug, which only occurs once in the Saga, is not known to occur anywhere else except in the inscription carved on the walls of Maeshow, referring to the breaking open of the tumulus, is interesting in more ways than one. It shows that the Norsemen were ignorant of the origin of the tumulus, which they knew only as the Orka-haug[[200]] or “mighty how.” In one of the inscriptions the writer assigns its construction to the sons of Lodbrok, which is equivalent to saying that its origin was quite unknown[[201]] to them.
Ring of Brogar, from the south-west.
About a mile to the south-west of Maeshow, and scattered over the ness or tongue of land separating the loch of Stennis from the sea, is a remarkable group of stone circles and tumuli.[[202]] The largest of the circles, the “Ring of Brogar,” having a diameter of 366 feet, encloses an area of 2½ acres. It is surrounded by a trench 29 feet broad and 6 feet deep. Within the enclosure thirteen stones of the great circle still remain standing, the stumps of thirteen more are visible, and ten are lying prostrate. The original number of the stones, says Captain Thomas, on the presumption that they were placed at nearly equal distances apart, would have been sixty, so that twenty-four have been entirely obliterated. The highest stone stands almost 14 feet above the surface of the ground, and the lowest is about 6 feet, the average being from 8 to 10 feet. It is difficult to realise the amount of laborious effort expended in the construction of a work like this, which does not appeal to the eye like the magnitude of the great mounds around it. But when one reflects on what is implied in the transportation and erection of these great stones, and the excavation of a ditch round them of 10 yards wide, 2 yards deep, and 366 yards long, it loses none of its magnificence in comparison with the more imposing monuments.
Ring of Stennis and Cromlech, from the northward.
The smaller circle, called the “Ring of Stennis,” is more clearly monumental than the Ring of Brogar, as it contains the remains of a cromlech within it. It seems to have consisted originally of twelve stones placed round the circumference of a circle of about 100 feet in diameter, and surrounded by a deep and broad trench with a circumscribing mound, now nearly obliterated. Only two stones of the circle remain standing, and a third lies prostrate. Peterkin states that some were thrown down and removed by the tenant of the adjoining lands in 1814. The cromlech is also thrown down, but one of the supports of the massive capstone is still standing, and the capstone, which lies beside it, is 9 feet long by 6 feet broad.
Ring of Stennis, from the westward.
The Ring of Bookan is a circular space 136 feet in diameter, surrounded by a trench 44 feet broad and 6 feet deep. There are upwards of twenty tumuli, some of them very large, in the immediate vicinity.
In the Saga of Olaf, Tryggvi’s son, Stennis is mentioned as the place where Havard, eldest of the five sons of Earl Thorfinn Hausakliuf, was slain in battle with his sister’s son Einar. The Saga says:[[203]]—“Havard was then at Stæinsnes in Hrossey. There it was they met, and there was a hard battle, and it was not long till the Earl fell. The place is now called Havard’s teigr.” Teigr is an individual’s share, or allotment, of the tun or town-land, and the expression might be taken to mean rather that Havard was buried by simple inhumation than that there was a cairn or tumulus raised over him, in which case it would have been known as Havard’s How. But the name of Havard was never connected with the great tumulus known as Maeshow, and if he was buried in a tumulus at all, it is more likely that his corpse was burnt with the customary ceremonies of that heathen time and his ashes placed in a great stone urn. The grave-mounds of the Viking period in Norway prove this to have been then the common practice. Such a mound, enclosing such an urn, was opened at Stennis by Mr. Farrer, M.P., in 1853. This tumulus, if not Havard’s, was apparently Norse, and being the largest in the neighbourhood of Stennis, must have been that of a person of great distinction.
The fact that the Norsemen at this early period (about A.D. 970) called this place Steins-ness, shows that it was known to them, only as it is to us, as the ness of the monumental stones. If they had had anything to do with the erection of any of these monuments, in all probability we should have had some incidental record of the fact in one or other of the Sagas.